Michael Fassbender...ASSASSIN'S CREED!!

The awesome Michael Fassbender, who caught the attention of Geeks far and wide recently when playing Erik Lehnsher /Magneto in X-MEN: FIRST CLASS and the morally uncertain android David in Ridley Scott's PROMETHEUS, will star in and co-produce "Assassin's Creed," the bigscreen adaptation of Ubisoft's videogame franchise, through his DMC Film per THIS piece in Variety.

Sounds like Ubisoft will be developing the film more or less internally, then shopping it around to perspective distributors. A similar approach didn't work out so well for the Peter Jackson-produced/Neill Blomkamp-directed HALO movie project...hopefully Fassbender and Co. will meet with better results.

The first game was a bit of a letdown. The second improved heavily on everything from the first. And Assassin's Creed Brotherhood is the pinnacle of the series so far. Revelations was also quite enjoyable.

Which one? French? Russian?
I'm about half-way through ACII. Just the other day, I was wondering when some film-maker was going to adapt the premise.
I quite enjoyed the first game, but yes, the second is a big step-up.

I like where they're going with this, and Michael Fassbender is one of my top working actors right now...but don't adapt the games and instead exploit the nature and the history of the series and give us a complimentary story which ties into the games.

And I've been gaming since Atari 2600. Another one of my top 5 is Red Dead Redemption. If you haven't played these games you've really missed out. Great story, open world gameplay. Everytime I played Assassin's Creed I just though of how cool a movie it would make. Fassenbender is a great choice too. Can't wait to see this flick.

best part is poisoning a guard, then throwing money on the ground next to him. All the bystanders come by to grab the money and the guard starts wailing on them in a poisoned stupor. Many lols were had.

This is probably the last video game series that requires an adaptation to film. Part of the appeal is immersing yourself into the history of the timeframe thru a digital hooded avatar, something that you cannot do as well via film making.
Give me a fucking decent Zelda film, made like a big budget LOTR film, with hot ass Emma Stone playing the tit-ular princess or something.
While your at it bring on Earthworm Jim too, and Dig-Dug.

The first was average, but kept me interested because of the Desmond moments, and 2 and Brotherhood were hugely addictive (getting the best weapons and armor is part of the fun)
Revelations wasn't so hot, and felt like more of the same. Who else here endeavoured to avoid those godawful tower defence scenarios? It was still a good game though.

Great graphics and interesting gameplay that being said, they lost me the minute the plot/setting is based on some Matrixesque reality.
It's like playing a game within a game.
I'm not feeling the science fiction aspect of the series and will forgo seeing the Film adaptation despite the great Fassbender.
Pass.

The games framework gives a great chance for an actor to play different characters in every sequel. I don't think they can carry most themes (like all religions being Evil Templar Lies To Control The Population) over the blockbuster movie, but I will stay pay good money to see some sweet Ezio action.

after watching the 50 minute live action prelude (GR Alpha) and playing the game itself, GRFS would have made for a great action thriller instead, we get COD wannabees like Act of Valor.
Make it so, Hollywood!

Having your character fluidly jump from chimney to rooftop, to sliding down a rope and then running along a narrow wall top. And the combat... was perfect. Stealing a halberd from a guard and then cleaving his own face with it. So much fun. I used to love just watching get surrounded by guards and then skillfully killing them one by one. Using one guard as a human shield. There were some many options... so much fun.

Its a lot of ground to cover in a movie. And dropping the sci-fi and/or modern day aspects of it is a terrible idea. Having it all tie into a larger picture is what makes the stories work. Otherwise, it's just a group of dudes in hoods. Besides, it's easier to introduce the more outlandish aspects of the plot (the deities that created man, etc.) if its done over the course of a longer running series than trying to throw all these sci-fi elements that would seem ridiculous at the audience in a two hour span. Imagine if Lost ran through the first 4-5 seasons in 2 hours.

That is, a horrible devolution and dilution of anything resembling quality. Superficial piles of nonsense cliches and mediocrity.
But hey, if it's how you like spending dozens of hours per week, knock yourself out. Just don't claim it's good.

This is great casting.
For the non-knowledgeable, the Assassins Creed lore is actually better then the game play. The story is extremely deep.
It is also a bit far-fetched. Ubisoft helped set the current generation standard for in-game cinematics with Assassins Creed. As a matter of fact, many of the sweeping 360degree camera spins used in the the Prince of Persia movie were right out of this series.
And how can anyone say MF is a bad choice... He is a terrific actor that has shown a lot of diversity. And, don't forget, he was an action star of sorts in 300 (the "fight in the shade" guy)

The play controls seemed somewhat ... complex, context sensitive they may have been. Also I was drunk and swapping the controller back and forth with my buddy. Jumping into it mid-stream seems a bit ... argh!

Wentworth Miller would have been some ridiculous race-based casting, though.
> Miller is of multiracial origin: his father is of African-American, Jamaican, English, German, Jewish and Cherokee background, and his mother is of Russian, French, Dutch, Syrian and Lebanese ancestry.
Seriously. His family tree is the cast of the Assassin's Creed series and he actually looks like Desmond Miles.
Then again, maybe Fassbender's the kind of legitimacy the movie needs (God knows he's the best actor this film could possibly hope for), as long as Altair stays an Arab.
Seriously, though, Said Taghmaoui needs a star vehicle. Make it happen, Ubisoft.

Went worth miller would be a good choice, I agree. Fassbender would be great as ezio though, and if they go with backstory animus stuff a movie will still work. Think it would be cool if did first movie not telling animus involved til end or half way, then open world up some and add that for second. Or keep it more bout Desmond then hop back for some action scenes and spoilers . big revelation at end could be Desmond starting to have abilities and has more ancestors. Might streamline a bit, tv show wouldn't work as much as I want it too. Shows get canceled too quick and this as a show would take too long to pick up steam. I personally thought lost went too long.

July 9, 2012, 3:02 p.m. CST

by john

The Arabic guy from mummy movies, was always the coolest, he would have done a good job too. Just glad we didn't get a Seth rogen or jack black whew. With Fassbender at least u know they are serious

But I mostly blame network television's insistence of having 20+ episode seasons. AMC's ~12 episode seasons are long enough to flesh out a story while not having to pad on extra fat. An AC show in that timeframe could work.

Wow that looks wicked..... Didn't look like a cutscene til the end. If it looks that good, kinda surprised that they didn't market as a seperate game like privateer or seadogs. Then again creed 2, set a pretty high mark for quality AND content. Like previous poster, easily in my top 5 of all time. Even a better rpg than some RPGs. And I played creed 2 after arykum asylum and it still impressed me. Assassins asylum anyone? Bats hunting down ezio? Ezio almost has as many gadgets and vehicles......if serious though bats would win.....tie in to league of shadows hmmmmm

I love the Idea of Fassbender as an assasin, he played the silent stoic type extreemly well, but all I see when I hear Video Game adaptation is Hitman (Which I grew up playing) and how AWFUL it was, when it should have been... Sigh... GOOD. The story was pretty great as well. :\
Maybe someday someone will do a good videogame to movie adaptation, but I just don't see it happening... What would it take really? the story is already there...
In other news... Spider-man... Really?
and Ted was fucking awesome!

All it takes is a good filmmaker, period. No good director has ever touched a videogame movie.....so why are we surprised they all suck?!?
Comic book movies sucked for decades until people like christopher nolan took an interest, and videogame movies will be the same. We just need another generation of directors to grow up who "get it" is all. That day is coming, don't worry.

He's actually an Israeli Jew with white European parents (a lot like Jake Gyllenhaal, and you see where that went). I mean, it's close enough to get the job done, but there are Arab actors who could do the job as well or better and are actually Arab, no need to cast every character in Hollywood as a straight up white dude.
Said Taghmaoui, as I mentioned before, is kind of a badass and a former professional kickboxer with some real acting chops who speaks fluent Arabic (and French, English, and Italian). He has the athletic talents necessary and has been in about 60 film and television roles.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0846548/
Just saying. Get the write-in campaign started, this dude is beyond legit and it's not like a lot of opportunities for positive Arab roles are going around these days.

I think that could work. Maybe set the movie during the time of the Roman Empire, so it wouldn't rehash the setting of any of the games.
Recently I re-watched the HBO Rome series, and all the city stuff about the collegium and the Aventine unrest made me imagine how awesome an Ancient Roman set Assassin's Creed game could be.

While I love Halo, I think it doesn't really lend itself anymore to being a big epic movie. At least not the Master Chief storyline. They'd need to do something more like Halo Reach, where we actually get to see the Spartans take their helmets off once in a while and have a conversation with each other or normal human beings.
Also, the Haloverse is fucking massive now. Doing a Halo film now would be the equivalent of making the first Star Wars film nowadays, but having to take into account all the extended universe stuff that is attached to SW. It would be a mess.
Halo can work as a TV series I think, focusing on the normal people and some soldiers, maybe ODST's, but then bringing the Spartans in as characters we see once in a while who interact with the normal folk. A Halo TV show done with the production value of say Battlestar Galactica or Game of Thrones would be amazing to see. I think that is the path they should take with it if they want to make something big and bold in live action form.
Also, we already have a Halo movie, the anime anthology Halo Legends. Then in the fall when Halo 4 is released, there is going to be a low budget Halo film called Infinity that is going to tie into the co-op campaign story for the fourth game. If you buy the Halo 4 collector's edition, you will get the Halo Infinity movie as part of the package.

Few years back, just about the time the first game came out, I was hired to write three novels based on Assassin's Creed. It sounded like fun, so I began to create the lead character's back story and so forth.
I actually finished the first book, and half the second, when I learned something shocking. It seems Ubisoft had a visit from some well-dressed Middle eastern types. It seems that the descendants of the original "Old Man In the Mountain" and his Hashassin still exist, following a gentleman named the Aga Khan (I believe) in India. They did not appreciate their history being appropriated by Westerners for their entertainment.
No threats were made, but Ubisoft freaked. This was not long after 9-11, and they obviously had visions of cars blowing up...or daggers left on pillows at midnight.
The books were canceled. It was bizarre, and I was pissed and bummed. Man, I'd worked out a secret alliance between Richard the Lionhearted and Saladin, fighting Lovecraftian beasties in the desert, a war that had to be expunged from the history books for the sake of Mankind's sanity. Damn it!
It is kinda funny though. And oh--yeah, they paid my ass, best believe it.

Some that could work well as films:
Assassin's Creed (Fassbender starring in this elevates it to having massive potential to be the first great videogame movie)
Deus Ex (this one has a similar potential to that of Assassin's Creed, as Deus Ex is more story-centric, while most popular modern games are shooting galleries)
Crysis (combines a bit of the more down to Earth style of shooter action that Call of Duty and Battlefield employ, with the sci-fi style of a Halo or Killzone type of game... Crysis could work well as a film as it is more grounded and smaller in scope than the massive universes of Halo or Mass Effect, and is also set on Earth in basically the present day/very near future, so it would be easier to draw in a larger audience as both sci-fi fans and action movie fans would find something to love here)
Bioshock (such a shame the Gore Verbinski version of this never got off the ground)
Fallout (as long as it kept the silly and satirical tone and retro style sci-fi trappings intact... maybe a perfect one for Neill Blomkamp or Paul Verhoeven)
Half-Life (I think this could work as either a film or a TV series)

Get a director like Zhang Yimou or John Woo or someone proven that can do proper action, not that shaky cam shit, and martial arts.
That was one of the major problems with the Mortal Kombat films (in addition to shitty scripts and low budgets). The martial arts stuff never had that "wow" effect that the best fighters on Earth would be expected to have. If they actually got people that knew what they were doing in terms of fighting and had a director that actually knew how to stage epic martial arts fights, then it could have been something.
Also, you've now got a pool of martial arts capable actors who could make up the perfect MK cast:
Jason Stathem (Kano)
Jet Li (Liu Kang)
Keanu Reeves or JCVD (Johnny Cage)
Chow Yun Fat or Ken Watanabe (Shang Tsung)
Tony Jaa or Colin Chou (Kung Lao)
Dolph Lundgren (Emperor Shao Khan)
Terry Crews (Jax)
Zhang Ziyi (Melina and Kitana)
Vin Diesel (Baraka)
Charlize Theron (Sonya Blade) -- if Anne Hathaway can be Catwoman, then Charlize can pull off Sonya Blade
Okay, so not all of these actors would be available at the same time. I'm sure a casting agent could find some suitable replacements for a few of them. And if they had to cast a couple actors who weren't martial artists, then train them Matrix style. I'm sure Fassbender will be doing some combat training for this Assassin's Creed film, so what's the difference? Either way, a perfect Mortal Kombat film is staring us in the face. The key is getting a good director. A John Woo (just look at Red Cliff) or Zhang Yimou (just look at Hero or House of Flying Daggers) is essential.

Personally if they were to make a film version, i'd love they did the Italy set games.
However, there is no real reason to think this will be based on any of the current games, time periods ect.
Might be a story which fits into the world.

Couldn't they have it just be that during the first act of the film, Fassbender is in the normal present day and then at the end of the first act he is caught and put in the Animus?
From there on just make the film set completely in the past time period with all the assassinatin' we expect from this film.
Sort of like how once Neo is jacked into the matrix, it seems like a real place.

Not much to criticise about this movie other than that it was "Indiana Jones with a D Cup".
It captured much of the spirit of the game AND managed to create a believable movie-verse with a kick-ass cast.
It's a guilty pleasure of mine.
But the sequel was a gigantic turd.

Are you the writer who said he didn't have connections, and finally made it because he wrote a script that couldn't be denied? No offense to the Jason Reitmans and Lena Dunhams, but success stories like yours are really the only ones that keep writers off the ledge in those moments of uncertainty.
Screw cynicism, just write something great.

I don't think so. I've been around a while, had more failures than successes, but had a wonderful ride. Published over two dozen novels, and about twenty hours of produced television, plus comics and other stuff. Man, the little kid I was just LOVES the fact that the man I am never quit, no matter how hard it got.
NOTHING in the world is better than living your dream, as long as you never, ever forget that it is a choice you made freely when times get tough. And trust me...they will. But that relates to the best advice my Mom ever gave me: life is brutally tough. You will have to work hard, no matter what you do. So choose to work at something you love.

That's a great idea! Hell, I pretty much have the whole thing planned out in my head at this point.
Michael Fassbender plays a suit at Abstergo corp heading up the animus project, and while looking for candidates for the project it's found he actually has the genetic markers they're looking for.
He then travels to ancient Rome looking for the spear of destiny (it's true nature is unknown to him) and in the process he goes through a personal journey and gains a sense of reflection thanks to the new perspective his assassin ancestor offers him and the parallels of corruption he sees in ancient rome before the fall.
The movie would end with a reference to the Templars and a new candidate abstergo has on the radar: Desmond miles.

I would also throw in Soul Calibur (well, in the fifth of the series they did have Enzio as a guest character/fighter.) and prototype in the suggestion box.
Prototype would work well as conspiracy thriller with all out Superheroesque action and elements of Horror here and there. (especially within the Zombie infect Red Zone areas.)
VG IPs do have the potentual to be good film adaptaions, as long as the studios devote enough passion to ensure that it lives up to it's counterpart in comparison without being totally off the mark.
(I'm looking at you, Paul WS Anderson!)

Ever since I played the original Assassin's Creed way back... I thought... this could make an interesting movie just as long as the studio doesn't hold the director back (violence / PG-13) rating, etc. If Fassbender is on board... I'll watch this shit in a heart beat. Fassbender was the only redeeming quality (outside the DP work) on Poopmetheus. I would definitely stick with the first AC's story line.